Homeschooling Around the World

By Christopher Klicka
Printed in Practical Homeschooling #39, 2001.

You could see it in their eyes. You could feel it throughout the room. The excitement and hope was welling up inside each member of the audience. They nodded knowingly as I reminded them of the inestimable value of their children and the dangers facing them in the present culture. Their faces showed mixed emotions of both fear and hope.

Parents drank up every word of each speaker that day as the reasons, rights, and practical steps of homeschooling were presented. They were completely focused. This is what they were looking for as they sought a solution to their children's training and education.

The meeting ended and they were enthusiastic. Many committed themselves to go against tradition and against the mainstream to homeschool. It was reminiscent of the homeschooling movement in America 15 years ago when parents were risking much to be different and answer God's call.

The place was Tokyo, Japan, this August and the parents had come from all over the country to be encouraged and instructed.

This was not a unique experience. I have seen this scene from Japan repeated in many places where I spoke to thousands of parents in other countries near and far: South Africa, French-speaking Quebec, Mexico, Switzerland, and Germany. Parents everywhere are desperate for hope and the opportunity to train their own children. The moral decay in the schools is common to many countries. The parents are starving for more information.

Homeschooling is big news in Japan. Japanese homeschoolers even have their own magazine!

It has become increasingly apparent to me as I travel that homeschooling is no longer an United States phenomena. Homeschooling is gradually but steadily spreading across the world.

The Internet is playing a large role in bringing the world closer together. As parents in foreign countries find web pages about homeschooling and learn about its invaluable benefits for their children, they want to homeschool too. However, they check their laws and find out it's not legal. In fact, it is very similar to the legal atmosphere in our country only 15 years ago.

They do not know where to start so they turn to that beacon of homeschool liberty: the United States. Inevitably, they contact us at the Home School Legal Defense Association to find out what we did to win the right to homeschool.

When I started working for HSLDA in 1985, I would have never dreamed that we could help homeschooling get legalized in other countries. We were just trying to survive. Yet God blessed us with many victories in the courts and legislatures to bring us to this day when it is clearly legal in all 50 states.

Although the homeschool movement in many countries is only a fledgling movement, it is beginning to take hold. The first step in many western and Asian countries is to make it legal.

Chris Klicka as keynote speaker. HOSA conference, Tookyo, Japan

One of the goals of the Home School Legal Defense Association is to export to other countries the knowledge and lessons we have learned through our struggle as homeschoolers to be free here in America. We also want to share the many benefits of homeschooling which include distributing various studies demonstrating the academic success of homeschoolers at the elementary, secondary, and college level.

Most important of all is our desire to share the light of Jesus Christ through the vehicle of homeschooling. Homeschooling enables families to teach what really matters: knowing Jesus as their Savior and obeying Him as Lord. More and more families homeschooling on the foundation of the Word of God will bring blessings to the nations around the world.

The HSLDA legal staff works regularly with homeschool leaders and homeschool associations in various countries. The assistance includes recommending legal and political strategies, sending homeschool studies and materials, corresponding and sometimes meeting with members of parliament and various government officials, organizing letter-writing campaigns to various foreign embassies, talking to foreign press, visiting and speaking in the country, and helping establish national legal defense associations for homeschoolers.

HSLDA also has provided seed money to start legal defense associations, purchase printing equipment, and buy other needed resources to homeschool leaders in various countries.

My hope is that homeschoolers throughout the U.S. will catch this vision of being a homeschool "missionary" and consider ways they can help and pray for parents just like us who are in foreign lands looking for hope for their children.

To help you catch the vision, I will describe to you the condition of education in various countries, the obstacles faced by parents trying to homeschool, and how Americans homeschoolers have helped.

I will begin with the most recent international efforts by HSLDA which have focused on Japan and Germany. The origins of the homeschool movements in these two countries, as you will see, are very different.

Board of the New Legal Defense Association for German Homeschooling—(from left to right) Oskar and Sylvia Zeiter, Crystal Klicka, and Armin Eckermann (president and attorney)

Homeschooling Grows in Japan and Germany

In Germany, the homeschool movement may be small, but the families are committed. Most of the homeschoolers are Christians who believe that God has called them to homeschool. Much like the laws in the United States, the German compulsory attendance laws are enacted by each state. No laws specifically allow for homeschooling, though each state allows school officials some discretionary authority to approve alternative education. While some families have obtained this approval, most families operate underground. At least seven families are in court.

In April, I traveled to Germany, along with my wife and oldest daughter, where I had been invited to speak to American military homeschoolers located there, as well as some of the German homeschool families. The German homeschool families that I observed were very excited about the conference and hung on every word spoken there. However, they were also worn out and somewhat despairing because of the legal climate in Germany. I met one particular father, Johann Harder, whose house had just been ransacked by the police. They broke in through the window, turned over furniture, emptied drawers, and dumped out the contents of the closets looking for their children. They also chased after the Harder children to try to physically bring them to public school. A couple of the children escaped through an attic window while the others remained hidden. One child was physically taken to the public school by the police that day. At the time, Mrs. Harder had a newborn infant, further escalating the trauma. Mr. Harder met with me and pleaded with me, asking if American homeschoolers could do something to help him. He was facing court action involving steps to take away their children. I promised to see what I could do for him.

While I was in Germany, I met with half a dozen German lawyers to discuss strategy and to begin networking them with many of the German homeschool families. My goal was to persuade them to establish a legal defense association for homeschoolers so that homeschoolers would not be picked off one by one in the courtroom. I was able to convince another organization, Christians for Truth, which has approximately 1,000 members, to fully endorse a soon-to-be-established legal defense association. Rich and Ingrid Guenther, who helped follow up on all these contacts, are now at the forefront of the German homeschool movement.

Upon returning to the States, we launched a nationwide alert on June 5, 2000, requesting American homeschoolers to contact the German Embassy to protest the criminal prosecution of the Harder family for their choice to homeschool. An embassy official confirmed that she received at least 1,000 emails and between 300 and 400 letters from concerned homeschoolers. The official also said that the embassy informed the German government about the outpouring of public opinion. In addition to the letter-writing campaign in the States, Terri Harding in Australia, Mike Richardson in Mexico, and homeschool leaders in other countries distributed our alert, generating calls to various German embassies throughout the world. Within three weeks, the scheduled court hearing for the custody of the Harder children was inexplicably canceled. A few days later, their attorney, Frau Eckermann, received a formal notice that the case had been dismissed and the charges were dropped. The German homeschool leaders wrote:

We homeschoolers here in Germany cannot offer thanks enough to HSLDA for your involvement and the involvement of thousands of homeschool families in response to your alert. Because of all of you, your prayers and actions, the Harders have been relieved of their heavy burden - the threat of their children being taken away from them. You being there for us, your counsel, and your actions throughout this whole ordeal were so helpful, needed, and encouraging. You have given us real hope.

Homeschooling press conference in Tokyo

This was an amazing result and an answer to prayer. However, the work is not done: Other German homeschoolers remain in court.

Around the same time, I was visited by four business associates of the Atmark Corporation from Japan. Over the last couple of years, Japan has been plagued with tremendous dropout rates in their high schools and junior high schools: over 300,000 children are dropping out each year. School bullying has also become a major problem, as the Japanese schools suffer a similar moral decline to public schools in America and throughout Europe. The business community and the press also realize that the schools in Japan are suffering. Businesses no longer want factory workers. They want individuals graduating from the schools who have ingenuity, individualism, and can break out of the mold to create new ideas. As a result, the business community is seeking solutions that might give children who have left school reason to return to their studies.

The four businessmen who visited my office are starting a business venture to provide a tutoring program to high-schoolers in Japan. During their visit, they wanted to know everything I could share with them about the homeschool movement here in the States. I helped them expand their vision to provide a program not only for high schoolers, but also for grades K-8. Because the Japanese government is most likely to listen to the business community, I encouraged them to work towards legalizing homeschooling in Japan. Unlike Germany, the business community is driving the homeschool movement, and the Japanese press is enthralled. Shortly after my meeting with the businessmen from Atmark, the two largest TV broadcasting companies in Tokyo, Tokyo Broadcasting Service (TBS) and NHK TV, came to my office to interview us about homeschooling and our grassroots successes before the legislatures. Subsequently, two one-hour specials on homeschooling aired in Japan.

I was invited by the Atmark Corporation to come to Japan to speak at the first-ever national homeschool conference. I had urged the businessmen to hold a conference and to create a national homeschool association. The plan was to launch this national homeschool association, HOSA, at the time of the conference. I encouraged them to hold a press conference and to set up a meeting with the Ministry of Education.

As I made my travel plans for Japan, I learned that I could go through Frankfurt on the way to Japan. I asked the Atmark Corporation if they would pay for me to have an extended layover in Frankfurt so that I could help establish the national legal defense association for homeschoolers in Germany. Atmark agreed to pay for the layover. During my layovers in Frankfurt, both on the way to and from Japan, we were able to establish a new national homeschool organization, Schulunterricht zu Hause (School Instruction at Home). Now German homeschoolers' resources can be pooled together in one organization to help finance their cases and fund work to negotiate with the German authorities to change the laws.

When my wife and I arrived in Japan, the Tokyo Broadcasting Service (TBS) was waiting at the gate and filmed us as we walked down the corridors to customs. After going through customs, the TBS reporters whisked my wife and me away in separate vehicles to take us to the hotel. During the trip to the hotel, a cameraman in the front seat filmed me while I was interviewed in the back seat.

Ken Watanabee, spokesman for Christian Home Educators Association of Japan, his wife, and me

Over the next several days, I had nonstop interviews with the Japanese press and spoke at a large press conference with all the major networks and newspapers in attendance. Some of the newspapers that carried excellent stories on homeschooling were the Daily Yomiuri, the Nikkei (the Wall Street Journal of Japan), the Tokyo Shimbun (the largest paper in Tokyo), Japan Today.com, and many others. The newly established homeschool association, HOSA, had been endorsed by the president of Microsoft of Japan and other major business leaders. The university community also endorsed HOSA. In fact, the president of HOSA, Shigeru Narita, is an education professor at Hyogo University. Akio Hata, a professor at the Saitama Institute of Technology, also serves on the board of HOSA. The vice-chairman of HOSA, Kozo Hino, is the president of Atmark. He and his advisor, Jun Adachi, were the main organizers of HOSA and were instrumental in involving the press. HOSA now even has their own homeschool magazine!

The business leaders arranged for me to meet with a high-level official in the Ministry of Education who, upon understanding the homeschool concept, highly endorsed the idea. Because Japan's compulsory attendance law is at the federal level, the Ministry of Education's decisions and opinions are very important to local school authorities. We are hoping to get the Minister of Education to sign a letter publicly endorsing the homeschooling concept.

TBS and NHK have come out to our offices in the United States for a second time to do additional programs. The last program aired by TBS resulted in well over 300 phone calls to HOSA of interested persons. As a result, dozens of new homeschool families have joined the HOSA organization. My wife and I were utterly amazed at the professionalism of the HOSA organization and the 100 percent support of the Japanese media. In the meantime, the Christian Home Educators Association of Japan (CHEA of Japan) has started with Hiro Inaba as president. I was able to network CHEA and HOSA and encourage them to work together as partners. CHEA of Japan mainly represents the small Christian community of parents interested in homeschooling in Japan.

HOSA and the homeschoolers of Japan are now looking for curricular materials to translate into Japanese and are also working with the Christian homeschoolers to develop Japanese curricula. God brought many things together to help these Japanese and German homeschool organizations to be established. The new German organization, Schulunterricht zu Hause, can be contacted by email at info@german-homeschool.de. The contact for CHEA of Japan is Hiro Inaba who can be e-mailed at HiroInaba@cheajapan.com. For more information on HOSA, visit their website at www.homeschool.ne.jp, or contact Jun Adachi at adachi8@email.msn.com.

Hungary Yearns for Homeschooling

As a former soviet satellite, Hungary has now become a free country. Unfortunately, the spiritual vacuum left behind is quickly being filled by the most decadent aspects of Western culture. The school system is thoroughly secularized and parents are looking for options. Dr. Gene Antonio, a homeschool father of seven, is working to organize a homeschool association. He explains that "We are dealing with sharp, educated, English-speaking people who intend to home educate their children bilingually. We already have had a Hungarian future homeschool mother come over to the house and observe how it is done, and many more mothers are catching the vision." He explains that the need and desire is there, but the families simply need to be reached, encouraged, and taught how to homeschool. He would like to place advertisements in the national newspapers and to send mailings to various churches. He is also planning to hold a homeschool seminar. Dr. Antonio said the greatest need is homeschool materials. He is requesting old homeschool magazines and used books to be sent to him.

Another group which will likely be working with Dr. Antonio is the Karoly Gaspar Institute of Theology and Missions with the Rev. Imre Scszokoe, who recently invited Mike McHugh of Christian Liberty Academy to come and speak in Hungary on homeschooling. Please pray for the homeschool movement in Hungary. Gene Antonio can be reached at DrAnthony@elender.hu. The Hungarian homeschoolers have a special need for Christ-centered, Bible-based textbooks and materials, such as Christ Centered Curriculum, Bob Jones University Press, A Beka Book, Alpha Omega Publications, School of Tomorrow, Christian Liberty, etc. To donate used books or educational materials via air mail or surface rate, send packages to c/o Mr. Istvanne Kriszt, Katona J.U.7., Debrecen 4027, Hungary. (Phone: 011-36-52-345-537. Simply mark the outside of the package as containing "used books" to avoid paying duties or customs. To send financial contributions or letters, write to c/o Dr. Gene and Rebecca Antonio, PO Box 54, Two Harbors, MN 55616 or call 011-36-52-347-624. Rev. Imre Scszokoe can be reached at kgtmi@matavnet.hu.

Mexico: Homeschooling Offers Hope in the Midst of Poverty

Last year in Mexico, over 600 Mexicans attended a homeschool conference in Saltillo, near Monterrey. Some families came as far as 30 hours! Nearly all the Mexican states were represented and also Costa Rica and Guatemala.

As I spoke, I saw the how the Lord was working in a mighty way among the people at the conference. They were deeply sensitive to the convicting power of God's Word and eager to have His will done in their families. With many tears, the Spanish-speaking families expressed their profound gratitude for the conference (which was offered free of charge) and for the preaching and teaching on building godly families.

Mexican Homeschooling Conference

I discovered the youth in Mexico and the Latin American countries are under the same secular assault as here in our country. I believe homeschooling will continue to expand rapidly as more and more families find out about its benefits.

Without clear compulsory attendance laws, homeschooling is flourishing legally. Quality education is hard to come by in Mexico and many families are poor. Homeschooling is providing an answer to this educational dilemma. It is enabling families to work together to ensure their children receive a good and
affordable education.

Mike Richardson, a missionary and homeschool father, had a vision three years ago to start an outreach ministry to encourage Latin American families to homeschool. His goal for this ministry is two-fold: to serve as a conduit for the gospel and to restore families. He offers a free homeschool newsletter in Spanish which is received by hundreds of families throughout Mexico and Latin America. He also organizes the annual homeschool conference outside Monterrey (Saltillo).

To receive Mike Richardson's Spanish homeschooling newsletter El Hogar Educador or to contribute to his ministry email him at vnm@characterlink.net or call 011.528.483.0377.

Brazil Family Needs Help

A few weeks ago, we received an urgent plea from a family in Brazil asking us to help them to legalize homeschooling there. The Carlos Vilhena family has been quietly homeschooling for the last 10 years in Brazil. Carlos is a federal prosecutor who decided to finally boldly seek recognition for his homeschool. He said many people homeschool in Brazil but they are underground since it is not officially recognized.

Carlos Vilhena explains, "The laws in Brazil are slightly less harsh than the ones in Germany considering school life. The peaceful nature of Brazilians does not preclude the possibility of Brazilian homeschool pioneers suffering the same constraints as their German counter parts. With this in mind, we are asking for international help to bring acceptance of homeschooling to Brazil and that it would serve as a model of peaceful change. We may be able to surprise everyone with the orderly and peaceful manner that this can be accomplished."

In Brazil, the compulsory attendance law (ages 7 to 14) is a federal law and the federal Council of Education can issue a policy to allow or prohibit homeschooling. Carlos has submitted a petition 9#23001000301/00-37 through his state government (Goias) to the federal Council of Education requesting homeschooling to be recognized.

We alerted homeschool leaders from around the country to contact the Federal Council of Education and urge them to support homeschooling. Unfortunately, although we convinced some of the council to support homeschooling, the majority ruled that the Coelho Family could no longer homeschool. Not content with limiting the decision to the Coelhos, the council prohibited homeschooling for everyone in Brazil!

Mr. Coelhos is appealing his case to the court, but action by homeschoolers is needed now. Please call the Brazilian Embassy on behalf of homeschooling parents in Brazil with this message:

Innocent homeschool families are being persecuted in Brazil, such as the Carlos Coelhos family (Petition 9#23001000301/00-37). A parent's right to direct the education of his children is a fundamental right that should be protected. Homeschooling works and we urge the government to officially legalize homeschooling in Brazil.

We encourage you to rephrase this message in your own words and include a few paragraphs in your letter describing the benefits of homeschooling to your own family. Your whole family should participate in this project of writing emails to the Brazilian Embassy. This is a great educational opportunity for your children to learn the importance of the freedoms we have in the United States, as well as an opportunity to help those who are less fortunate.

You can contact the Embassy at: Embassy of Brazil, 3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, 20008. (202) 238-2827. Fax: (202) 238-2827. Email: webmaster@brasilemb.org.

Professor Jamil Cury is the "gatekeeper" who can recommend homeschooling to the Council either favorably or unfavorably. He himself is a member of the Council. We alerted homeschool leaders from around the country to contact Dr. Cury and urge him support homeschooling. If he is convinced of the success of homeschooling, the Council will likely officially recognize homeschooling for the entire country. We are eagerly awaiting the results of this vote.

Irish Homeschoolers Avoid Restrictive Legislation

The homeschool movement of Ireland is small but the right of parents to homeschool was about to be severely diminished late last year.

The Irish Senate passed a dangerous bill which would have required homeschoolers to register and be subject to periodic assessments at the whim of the school authorities. Worst of all, the bill would have required homeschoolers to submit to home visits where the "education welfare officer" would observe instruction taking place, inspect the premises, and carry out an on-site assessment of the child's intellectual, emotional, and physical development.

The Irish homeschoolers asked for our help.

In response, HSLDA launched a nationwide alert and HSLDA members sent hundreds of letters and calls to the Irish embassy.

I worked with homeschool attorney Elisabeth Bruton to help organize a strategy for organizing the homeschoolers and lobbying the legislature. He corresponded with over 15 key members of the Lower House in an attempt to persuade them to derail the bill. The calls of HSLDA members in the United States to the Irish Embassy significantly contributed to the willingness of the Irish parliament members and minister of education to agree to a compromise.

In the final passage of the bill this summer, mandatory home visits for all homeschoolers were removed.

Homeschool leader, Elizabeth Bruton wrote,

Thank you for the invaluable help given by HSLDA and your members in lobbying for changes to the proposed homeschool legislation. Homeschooling in Ireland was facing a bleak future. Parents were to be confronted with mandatory home visits and wide-ranging assessments of their children before being allowed to homeschool. As a result of the lobbying, the government has made significant concessions. Families who diligently educate their children at home can confidently proceed.

When homeschoolers lobby, they make a difference - even across the ocean. We are thankful to God for blessing the prayers and efforts of homeschool families in the US and Ireland.

Taiwan Takes Off

Homeschooling has overcome a tremendous obstacle in the island country of Taiwan. Homeschooling in Taiwan was officially legalized on June 24, 1999.

Until recently, elementary and junior high school-aged (grades 1-9) children had to attend public school or private school - no exceptions. As a result, the great majority of homeschooled children could only be preschoolers and kindergartners. Only a handful of them were school-aged.

These parents with school-aged children were able to reach an agreement with sympathetic local school officials to teach their children at home most of the time and take tests along with classmates. Some decided to withdraw their children from school completely, simply praying and hoping that the school officials wouldn't bother to pursue them.

The Home Educators' Fellowship, a Christian organization, was founded in August 1998 to unite home educators, keep up with legal issues, and organize/share teaching resources, while adhering to biblical principles. Shou-kong and Chuo-chuin Fan are homeschooling parents who founded the organization. It now has over 120 member families nationwide (about 90 percent Christians, 15 percent pastors).

Now that it's legal, the Fans are observing a big surge of families taking their children out of both elementary and junior high schools.

The government of Taiwan invited the Home Educators' Fellowship to help draft the new regulating policy. I had the privilege to provide counsel and model language which was used as the basis for proposals at the meetings with the government.

To support the homeschoolers in Taiwan, you can contact the Home Educators Fellowship at lfpower@ms26hinet.net or skfan@tpts5.seed.net.tw.

Canada

The vast country to our north, Canada, is experiencing a steady growth of parents choosing homeschooling. Homeschooling is presently legal in all provinces but the requirements are varied.

In the early 1990's, the Home School Legal Defense Association of Canada was established. From HSLDA of the USA, Michael Smith and I are on the board, along with Canadian homeschool fathers Jack Baribeau and Dan Rhinehart. Mike and I have traveled many times to Canada to speak at homeschool conferences throughout most of the provinces.

Dallas Miller, senior counsel of HSLDA of Canada, is spearheading efforts in a number of trouble spots to protect the rights of homeschoolers. For example, in Ontario and Quebec school board officials are attempting to apply "vague" laws in an unfriendly manner against homeschoolers. Problems also continue in "maritime" provinces where school officials have discretionary approval over homeschoolers.

In addition to dealing with school board officials, more and more families in Canada are the recipients of unfriendly contacts from social workers. Regardless as to the province, homeschoolers are susceptible to investigations because of methods of discipline, or as a result of anonymous complaints. HSLDA of Canada has two cases reported in the law reports where homeschooling families were persecuted by social services and the courts found in favor of parental rights and family autonomy.

In May of 1999, the newly established Association of Christian Home Educators of Quebec (ACHEQ) held their first Home School Conference and Curriculum Fair in Montreal. Speaking through a translator, Dallas Miller of HSLDA of Canada and I were invited to address the audience on the rights and freedoms of homeschoolers. The parents who founded the organization, Rod and Cheryl Stilwell, the main organizers of the event, were particularly pleased with response from the French-speaking community. The Quebec homeschoolers were clearly thirsty for information on homeschooling and excited to have a province-wide Christian homeschool organization.

You can contact HSLDA of Canada at hslda@memlane.com

South Africa: The Battle Is Not Over

South Africa has come a long way in the last seven years. In 1993, homeschooling was illegal in South Africa. When Andre and Bokkie Mientjies were sentenced to two years in jail for homeschooling, South African homeschooler Graham Shortridge contacted us in desperation for help. I launched a nationwide campaign for homeschoolers to write to the South African embassy demanding the Mientjies' release. The calls and pressure worked and the Mientjies were soon released.

In 1995, a report by the national government was released indicating homeschooling should only be legal if the parents are licensed and approved at the discretion of the department of education. Over the next year and a half, I worked closely with Leendert van Oostrum of Pretoria and Graham Shortridge of Capetown and various parliament members, spearheading three more nationwide alerts at key junctures of debate in the national parliament. Each alert helped turn the tide further in favor of the homeschoolers until finally in December of 1996, the education act passed, formally legalizing homeschooling. But the battles continue as the government tries to impose burdensome, arbitrary requirements on them.

The South African leaders invited me and my wife Tracy to speak in five cities in 1997 (Pretoria, Durban, Capetown, Dundee, and Pietermartinzburg). The country is very diverse with 11 official languages. There are many black tribes, Afrikaaners of European descent who arrived in the 1600's, English, Coloureds, and Indians. Yet parents from all these very different groups care about their children and are concerned about the secularization of their public schools. They unite to maintain the right to homeschool their children.

As we spoke and shared American homeschoolers' struggle to be free, the South African parents understood and took courage. When my wife spoke on how to homeschool and manage toddlers, the mothers gave her their undivided attention, thirsting for more. As I watched the crowd, I could see tears in the eyes of these loving parents.

We had Christian radio interviews wherever we went and the interest in homeschooling was high.

Chris and Tracy Klicka interviewed on "Tigre Radio" in Capetown, South Africa

While I was there I helped establish a legal defense fund and serve on the board. The Pestalozzi Trust, The Legal Defense Fund for Home Education, was formally organized with Leendert van Oostrum as president.

The Pestalozzi Trust is now growing in membership (this past year they went from 100 to 500 members) and is counseling homeschoolers throughout the country who are contacted by the authorities. The board members and Leendert are speaking at conferences and networking the homeschoolers. Much tedious work is presently being done in province after province as they wrestle with very vague homeschool regulations.

Please pray for God's protection for the homeschoolers during this volatile time. Also be ready to write or call the South African embassy if needed!

The Pestalozzi Trust uses the following email address: defensor@lantic.net and web site www.lantic.co.za/~curamus1.

What Can You Do?

The world is a big place. In addition to these listed countries, we are also working with the authorities in Switzerland and Sweden. In fact, one of the largest TV stations in Sweden came to our office to interview us on homeschooling. As a result, a nationwide program on homeschooling was aired, making many more people aware in Sweden. The task of helping other countries legalize homeschooling is daunting. The curriculum needs are great. We can't do everything, but we can do something. And what we can do, we ought to do to help "the least of these" who are desperate for our support.

Here are some suggestions on what you can do:

Adopt a country. Learn all you can about the homeschool movement there by checking the HSLDA web site at www.hslda.org. Use it as an opportunity to instruct your children and do a unit study on the country. Explore its history, culture, traditions, and geography. Develop pen-pals.
Pray for homeschoolers around the world.
Donate money and used books and homeschool products to help the fledgling homeschool organizations succeed.
Respond to HSLDA alerts by writing or calling foreign embassies encouraging them to inform their governments that parents need to be allowed to homeschool.

PHS Writers and Columnists

Homeschooling Around the World

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